The Vortex of Fancy and Fanaticism

How is it possible that man should have any
clear conceptions of natural truth, when his understanding is
constantly insulted with a thousand incongruous and non-existent
relations, such as ghosts, witches, and devils, which perpetually
disturb the imagination, and draw the rational faculties into the
vortex of fancy and fanaticism? and this will ever be the case so
long as superstition, or, which is the same thing, a religion
claiming a supernatural birth, shall spread its bloody and baneful
influence among intelligent beings.

 --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Impossibility of Illogical Thought

Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically. It used to be said that God could create anything except what would be contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is that we could not say what an 'illogical' world would look like. It is as impossible to represent in language anything that 'contradicts logic' as it is in geometry to represent by its a coordinates a figure that contradicts the laws of space, or to give the coordinates of a point that does not exist.... In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic.... Self-evidence, which [Bertrand] Russell talked about so much, can be dispensable in logic, only because language itself prevents every logical mistake.--What makes logic a priori is the impossibility of illogical thought. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus   3.03, 3.031, 3.032, 5.473, 5.4731 (H/T: Roderick T. Long )      
Read more

Is He Having a Laugh?

According to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the government is God's appointed agent on earth, and each of us owes it allegiance and obedience. If that's so--and I for one don't believe either part of that statement--I'd like some believer to explain what God had in mind when he arranged things so that one of the two major-party clowns running for president will be elected in November. Is He having a laugh?
Read more

Freedom-Saturated Language

Determinists--deniers of free will, that is--apparently don't listen to themselves or read their own words. If they did they'd see that we human beings have no escape from freedom-saturated language. Think of words like should , deliberate , presume , intend , and so on ad infinitum. It is just impossible to speak or think as though determinism were true. And that says a lot. Our freedom is self-evident. You cannot demonstrate it because to demonstrate anything both  presupposes  and requires  freedom. You confirm freedom each time you set out to disconfirm it. "Today I plan to write out my proof that we have no freedom." Nonsense!  In contrast, we are perfectly capable of getting through a day without using God-saturated language.
Read more